The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder...

[Arnold_Snyder]

First, regarding Radar: I would like to thank both WhiskeyR and Cactus Jack for defending Radar’s right to anonymity, though if you knew Radar, you would know that Radar rarely needs any help with defense, offense, or any other kind of ’fense. Radar never posted anything here but arguments with regards to the ideas and contents of my book, and statements that Mason and others here made about those contents. Anyway, woe be to anyone who ever insinuates that Radar is some kind of appendage to (or shill for) me. Radar was a professional gambler when we met, is mentioned in most of my books as my playing partner, has developed some of the most powerful professional gambling techniques for blackjack ever devised, and currently is working (independent of me) with a number of high stakes pros in ways that have never, and may never, be published. I suspect that Radar makes more money per month from gambling than most anyone who posts here makes in a year (possibly barring Men the Master). Also, the total amount I have ever made from book royalties per year is well below Radar’s monthly gambling income, so the insinuation made by some poster here that Radar may be influenced by financial considerations from my book is truly ludicrous. In fact, Radar has begged me numerous times to stop publishing valuable gambling secrets and just use them to make money. I have already begun to regret having written this book, as I have come to learn that although the fast play methods I describe are necessary strategies for beating fast tournaments, they are also very advantageous in long slow events. So, this may be my last book.

Regarding PTF: Mason said he agreed with my statement that some tournaments were too fast to offer much profit opportunity to skillful players. Many tournament players are aware of this, and some eventually figure out more or less which tourneys to avoid and which ones to play. But the methods players use to figure out a tournament’s potential value are very imprecise, and most players can’t really tell from looking at the starting chips and blind structure how fast a tournament will be; they actually have to play it a few times before they get much of a handle on it. Even experienced tournament players have no way to judge a tournament’s speed just by looking at the structure. Despite the fact that tournaments have been with us for decades, I’ve never seen a method for quantifying any specific tournament’s speed. And many poker rooms take advantage of tournament players’ ignorance by offering tournaments with terrible formats that are really just designed to finish quickly so the poker room dealers can get back to dealing the raked games where the house makes its money.

Case in point: The 2006 WSOP. Just about every day, the Rio offered two “2nd Chance” tourneys, one at 5pm and another at 11pm. The buy-in for the 5pm tourney was $540. The 11pm tourney was $230. For those prices, these were far and away the worst tournaments in Las Vegas as far as structure and speed are concerned. There are $540 tournaments offered every day of the week at various poker rooms throughout Las Vegas. The Bellagio has them five days a week, Sunday-Thursday at 2pm. Mirage and Venetian offer them on Friday and Saturday afternoon. Wynn’s is on Friday only. So, essentially, there is a Las Vegas tournament at this same price every day of the week, with three on Friday and two on Saturday.

In the PTF, I explain a very simple and logical method of estimating a tournament’s speed based on its structure. It calculates a number I call a “patience factor,” and the higher this number, the longer and slower the tournament will be. Here are the patience factors of these $540 tourneys:

Venetian: 13.56
Wynn: 10.42
Mirage: 10.07
Bellagio: 9.00
WSOP: 5.69

I consider any tournament with a patience factor of 10 or above to rate as “Skill Level 6.” The Bellagio tourney, with a patience factor of 9.00, rates as Skill level 5, still a high skill event. But that WSOP tournament with a patience factor of only 5.69, is categorized as Skill Level 3. I can find tournaments in Las Vegas with Skill Levels higher than this every day of the week in the $60 to $150 price range. Yet, Rio was putting a professional price point on what is clearly a rank amateur tournament. Furthermore, I saw many players that I recognized as skilled players entering this awful tournament.

Even worse, was the Rio’s 11pm $230 tourney. The structure of this tournament gave it a patience factor of 2.53, or Skill Level 1. In PTF, I advise even those players who master fast play to avoid tournaments this lightening fast. There are lots of Skill Level 1 tournaments available in Las Vegas—but not for $230! You’ll find them at Aladdin ($60), Bally’s ($60), Cannery ($25), Flamingo ($60), Imperial Palace ($80), MGM Grand ($65), Monte Carlo ($40), and a whole bunch of other casino poker rooms (Paris, Plaza, Sam’s Town, Stardust, Stratosphere, Treasure Island, Tuscany, and others), all with buy-ins under $100. I wouldn’t waste my time in any of these tournaments, even at these bargain-priced buy-ins. You can find Skill Level 4 tournaments at Caesars every day of the week for $130, and Orleans has a number of Skill Level 3 and 4 tourneys throughout the week priced under $100. But Rio puts a $230 buy-in/entry on a Skill Level 1 tourney, a total crapshoot, and because it was being offered at the WSOP, they attracted hundreds of players, including many smart and experienced players, every night.

The Internet tournament scene is even worse than the live tournament scene as far as price having anything to do with value. Online, you can find many Skill Level 6 tournaments in the $10-$30 price range (Bodog, Absolute Poker, Full Tilt), and also tournaments priced as high as $530 that are only Skill Level 4 (Poker Stars).

Most tournament players think that the higher the price, the more “professional” the event. Or they think that the number of starting chips is the criterion to use, never even looking at the blind structure. Tournament players need to get a handle on tournament speed in order to choose the events they play wisely, based on their own skill and bankroll. I really do believe that my book is the first to address this problem in depth, and provide tournament players with an easy and logical method of rating tournaments by speed and Skill Level.

In any case, I do hope that some of you may benefit from my book. The position strategy is kick-ass, and if you follow my advice and play a few tournaments in the dark, you will discover this for yourself. The rebuy chapter really is the only accurate analysis of rebuy theory and logic that has ever appeared in print. Harrington ignores rebuy strategies. And Sklansky got it wrong. No one else has ever really done the math. If you play in live tourneys, you’ll find the chapter on player types invaluable. You will see these characters at your tables over and over. Don’t ignore the effect field size has on a fast tournament when it comes to crunch time, and make sure you understand that crunch time is really where you determine your finishing position, well before the final table. And pay particular attention to the chapter (and appendix material) on bankroll requirements. This is something that every other poker author has ignored when it comes to tournament players.

I’ll be out of town for a few days and will not have Internet access. After that, if you have any questions, feel free to email me at arnoldsnyder@blackjackforumonline.com. And I hang out a lot at my own website, www.pokertournamentformula.com, where you may also feel free to post questions. I’ve really appreciated all the discussion here, and would like to thank Mason once more for inviting me to participate (even though I’m still not sure he gets it).

[Radar_O'Reilly]

Mason:[ QUOTE ]
I hope this is my last post in this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mason, we should be so lucky.

Me:[ QUOTE ]
It is true that Arnold's basic strategy says that, with a competitive chip stack in late position and no one else in, "Raise with any two cards" (p. 157). However, he qualifies that on p. 84, in his chapter on position basic strategy, with the comment: "Although the basic position strategy is to raise, it is generally best to mix up your play on the button with raises and calls." He explains that the reason for mixing it up is for camo--to disguise your constant theft. I do not disagree that a small pair might be one of the better hands with which to call instead of raise to mix up your play.


[/ QUOTE ]

Mason: [ QUOTE ]
I think this shows some confusion about no limit. You don't limp in in this spot to mix up your play. You limp with the small pair when the stacks are deep to maximize expectation. That's because in deep stack no limit (which would be the case when all the Ms are high) an important component of a hand's value is its ability to extract a lot of money from your opponent on the later streets if you get a very good flop. See No Limit Hold 'em: Theory and Practice by David Sklansky and Ed Miller for more discussion.

[/ QUOTE ]

My response: I think you show a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between a cash game or slow no-limit tournament and a fast tournament. What you are saying about maximizing ev is true for a cash game, or true for a slow tournament. It is not true for a fast tournament even when you have a big M, because you don't have sufficient expectation of getting the trapping hand and big payoff you want often enough in the time available. A fast tournament bet (the buy-in) requires a fast tournament strategy, not an optimal per-hand cash strategy, to maximize ev on the tournament bet.

Me: [ QUOTE ]
The reason the basic strategy is to raise in a fast tournament rather than call is because you are too unlikely to get a set with those small pairs frequently enough to get the return on investment you need to keep up with the rapidly declining M. You are unlikely to get a set because sets occur too infrequently, and in fast tournaments you simply do not have the same time luxury to wait for trapping hands. Because the blinds are going up so quickly, you have to have a better chance of making money now.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mason: [ QUOTE ]
Not quite but this is getting better. The reason you raise with the small pair in this spot is that the Ms (both yours and your potential opponents) won't be high enough to make it worthwhile to try to trap your opponent. Put another way, that component of getting lots of money on the later streets when the flop comes right won't be there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mason, I don't see any disagreement here between our points. You're saying the M won't be high enough. If I understand you correctly, you are saying it won't be high enough in a few more hands. If that's what you're saying, then we're both saying that it is anticipation of the rapidly declining M that is changing your optimal strategy.

Me: [ QUOTE ]
The point Arnold makes in The Poker Tournament Formula is that it is wrong in a fast tournament to sit there playing conservatively with the thought that you have time to trap that guy. The reason it is wrong is because you don't have time to trap anyone. What he says is (p. 234): "For you to sit there thinking, 'Wait until I have a really big hand--then I'll show them!' is just a fantasy. By the time you get that big hand--if you get that big hand--you won't have enough chips left to show anybody anything. You'll just be the short stack that got lucky in time to double up, so the sharks can start taking bites out of you again."

[/ QUOTE ]

Mason:[ QUOTE ]
It's frustrating debating with you because your arguments seem to completely ignore what I have written.

[/ QUOTE ]

Me: Mason, I am trying as hard as I can to understand your meaning in each post, and to respond to your point in each post. I feel the same frustration, because I have provided numerous examples and arguments to which you never responded. We have a blizzard of posts going on here, and it is difficult to properly track and respond to every argument.

Mason: [ QUOTE ]
So when you say
[ QUOTE ]
What he says is (p. 234): "For you to sit there thinking, 'Wait until I have a really big hand--then I'll show them!' is just a fantasy. By the time you get that big hand--if you get that big hand--you won't have enough chips left to show anybody anything.

[/ QUOTE ]

you ignore the fact that I have posted more than once a quote from Harrington II that says the exact same thing. The difference is that Harrington is not basing it on what you call tournament speed. He's basing it on M. And just to prove my point, here's the quote again from page 158:

[ QUOTE ]
At this point, you might well wonder how players of each style approach the problems of the endgame. The answer is surprising to many people: No matter which style you naturally play, your approach to endgame problems will be very similar. The rising blinds and your shrinking stack size will force you to play in a super-aggressive way. Players who naturally play in a super-aggressive style tend to adapt more naturally and quickly to endgame problems, which I think is the main reason their tournament results tend to be better than players whose natural style is tighter. But by and large, the problems of the endgame tend to be problems of technique, not style. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no conservative players at the tail end of tournaments. Someone who’s waiting for premium starting hands with a short stack isn’t playing conservatively, he’s just playing badly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have stated throughout this thread that Snyder and Harrington will agree on most situations, but not all, on the best strategy. That's because in your fast tournaments, the Ms will usually be low. I don't know how else to state this, yet you keep arguing that we are saying something else.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm glad you gave me another chance to respond to this Harrington quote because to me it epitomizes the problem with Harrington's strategy for fast tournaments, and by that I mean it epitomizes the problem of playing to current Formula M in fast tournaments rather than playing an overall strategy that takes into account not just M, but also anticipates the effects of rapidly declining M.

In some tournaments, including all fast tournaments, structure dictates that the end will always be a situation such as Harrington describes. (In other, slower tournaments, this is not necessarily the case.) Harrington doesn't specify why he's short here, and he doesn't even seem aware that a short stack is not inevitable late in all tournaments, and that is where he's slipping up in terms of fast tournaments.

Certainly Arnold and Harrington agree that, if you are in fact short at this point, for whatever reason, you have to play aggressively. But at no point in his excellent three-part 1000+ page book does Harrington seriously connect this situation to the rest of his overall tournament strategy. What I am saying is that Harrington, by always playing according to current M (or the M coming within a few hands), is reacting too slowly--or even too late--to conditions caused by tournament structure, and as a result will be trapping himself in fast tournaments. He is failing to prepare for the part of a tournament where "The rising blinds and your shrinking stack size will force you to play in a super-aggressive way," even in tournaments where such a state is inevitable and can be anticipated.

If you are always waiting and reacting to current Formula M, you will not be chip-positioned for an advantage in this part of the tournament.

Mason: [ QUOTE ]
Harrington does not advise to play as you state over and over. I don't either. That's why I say that The Poker Tournament Formula will improve the expectation of most who read and study it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I appreciate the nice comment. I agree that Harrington has all kinds of really smart, well-thought-out, valuable playing advice in his books. There are hundreds of pages of all kinds of cool bluff strategies, trapping strategies, and other great ways to play hands. Really good stuff, and a lot of variety. This is a terrific book, and a must-read for any poker tournament player. I probably should have said this earlier, but it just seemed so obvious that there was no reason to say it.

It's only regarding Harrington's overall tournament strategy advice that I have problems, and only for fast tournaments. Let me provide some quotes of advice I consider problematic:

p. 57, Harrington II "...about one bluff every hour and a half seems about right. That works out to about six bluffs in the course of a nine-hour playing session. If the table is moving along at 30 to 40 hands per hour, that's about one bluff every 50 to 60 hands. Note too that I'm not talking here about gigantic bluffs where you put your whole tournament at risk, but just your run of the mill moves where you pick up the blinds and antes, plus perhaps an extra bet or two."

And, on p. 57 of Harrington I, he writes specifically about bluffing in fast tournaments online: "Don't plan on running any bluffs." He says that players are too aggressive in these fast online tournaments to bluff at.

I consider this bad advice for fast tournaments because it is impossible to stay in the Green without stealing much more than this. And you just cannot make a statement that bluffing is impossible in fast tournaments without qualifying it with a lot of other information. If you're playing in a turbo tourney, where the blinds are going up every three minutes, Harrington's advice not to bluff may be true. If you're playing in a superfast MTT (what Arnold would call a Skill Level 0 to Skill Level 2 tournament), again this may be true. But Harrington is writing about online tournaments with blind levels that last up to 12 minutes, which is the equivalent of roughly 20 minutes live. You can do all kinds of bluffing in the better fast tournament structures online (and Arnold's rock/paper/scissors strategy tells you how to do it). In fact, a fast bluffing strategy will be optimal in a "good" fast tournament because it will tend to help you avoid risky confrontations. Moreover, the lack of ability to bluff in a fast MTT is what separates the crapshoots from the high EV fast events.

And note the contradiction in the following quote from Harrington:

p. 58 Harrington I (on Optimal Strategy for a Small Stakes Multitable Online Tournament): "...a conservative strategy ought to pay big dividends, since strong hands rate to get paid very well. If the blinds were increasing slowly, and the rounds were longer, this would certainly be true. But with short rounds and sharp blind increases, a strictly conservative approach won't yield results fast enough to keep your stack from shrinking as the blinds come charging. While you should be generally conservative, you have to mix in two other ideas:" The two ideas he presents for mixing in are trying to see some cheap flops in the hopes of flopping a monster trapping hand, and pushing your good hands (top pairs, trips) to the maximum, with the hope of doubling up.

To me, this paragraph shows that Harrington does not have experience in fast tournaments and has not really thought them through. He acknowledges that you are going to need to play fast to keep up with the swiftly increasing blinds. No disagreement there. But then, his overall strategy recommendation is to play conservatively (his word), again hoping for that big trapping hand that is such a useful part of his strategy in slow tournaments.

In an earlier post, which you may have missed, I showed that you have only 15 hands in the Green Zone (assuming you play no hands) in the Mirage Tuesday night tournament, while you had 180 hands in the Green Zone (assuming you played no hands) in the old WSOP main event with two-hour blinds. I made the point that you cannot count on catching monster trapping hands in the 15 Green Zone hands you have in the Mirage tournament. You can't even count on getting a pair, especially not a medium or high pair. You do, by contrast, have a good chance of catching a monster trapping hand in the 180 hands in the Green Zone in the WSOP event, and you will see many pairs. The difference between those 15 hands and 180 hands is what makes Harrington's advice to play conservatively bad for fast tournaments.

On p. 156 of Harrington II, at the beginning of his examples of inflection point play, he does acknowledge the need to look ahead in a circumstance where you are currently in the Yellow zone, but will be in the Orange zone within the next few hands. He acknowledges that because of this, you are looking to make some kind of move now, rather than later. But he doesn't carry this insight far enough to be satisfactory for fast tournaments. He has you waiting until you are on the verge of the lower zone to speed up your play. It's understandable that he feels comfortable waiting that long, because he is playing in tournaments with blind levels that last so long that you really do have time to wait, if you choose.

But you cannot wait until a few hands before the next level to make a move in a fast tournament, not even in a fast tournament that gives you more than 15 hands in the Green Zone. You need an overall tournament strategy that anticipates the effects of rapidly diminishing M much farther in advance, because you need to be making many more moves to stay in the Green Zone.

Me: [ QUOTE ]
The Poker Tournament Formula does not advise just going and playing any two cards any time you are in danger of going out of the Green Zone on the next hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mason: [ QUOTE ]
Who said it did. But you said:

[/ QUOTE ]

Me: [ QUOTE ]
You play with the biggest advantage if you are a fully functional poker player--that is, in the green zone--and in order to stay in the green zone in fast tournaments, you have to choose a strategy that will keep you there.


[/ QUOTE ]

Mason: [ QUOTE ]
So I gave you an example where the best strategy to keep you in the Green Zone was clearly wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but you are just being tricky and choosing to interpret what I said in an unreasonably narrow way. The focus of my argument, throughout my posts, has been about optimal overall fast tournament strategy. Again and again, in post after post, I have stated that the fast-play strategy is designed to keep you in the Green Zone more overall, not that you have to be goofy and refuse to accept even one single hand out of it.

And, regarding this conflict of interest thing. In all of my posts in this thread, I have deliberately left out any kind of talk about anyone's personal motivations or conflicts. I have stuck to arguments about the points under dispute. If anyone can refute the arguments, then refute them. If I am providing bad arguments out of a desire to sell books, it should be easy to refute them.

Thank you for so quickly removing my name, and thank you to those who pointed out the importance of this.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Everyone:

I do want to make one final post just to illustrate that tournament speed is not the right parameter to look at. Yes I know this is probably my fourth final post in this thread.

On page 270, of The Poker Tournament Forula there is a chart with a sample tournament in terms of cost per round. In this tournament you start with $1,300 in chips and the initial blinds are $10 and $15 and no antes. Put another way, your starting "M" is over 50.

Now suppose you are on the button, have a pair of fours, and everyone passes to you. What's the aggressive play?

If you answer raising, you're wrong. That's because most of the time after you raise your "M" will go up by a value of 1 which is totally worthless at this point in the tournament.

The aggressive play is to limp. That gives you the best chance to win a big chunk of the chips of one or both of the players in the blinds. And as Arnold points out, in these tournament, it's important to start accumulating chips right from the beginning.

This is precisely what I perceive as the flaw in this book. It is constantly giving you the proper advice of how to play when the "M"s, either yours or your opponents, are much smaller.

Now it just turns out that thinking like this will still be much better than the typical player who plays these small buy-in tournaments simply because, as I have stated many times in this thread, those situations where everyone has a deep stack relative to the cost per round won't occur that often. But when it does occur the advice is not optimal, and by thinking in terms of "M" you should always be able to make the optimal plays assuming you understand what they are.

best wishes,
Mason

[jackaaron]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Everyone:

I do want to make one final post just to illustrate that tournament speed is not the right parameter to look at. Yes I know this is probably my fourth final post in this thread.

On page 270, of The Poker Tournament Forula there is a chart with a sample tournament in terms of cost per round. In this tournament you start with $1,300 in chips and the initial blinds are $10 and $15 and no antes. Put another way, your starting "M" is over 50.

Now suppose you are on the button, have a pair of fours, and everyone passes to you. What's the aggressive play?

If you answer raising, you're wrong. That's because most of the time after you raise your "M" will go up by a value of 1 which is totally worthless at this point in the tournament.

The aggressive play is to limp. That gives you the best chance to win a big chunk of the chips of one or both of the players in the blinds. And as Arnold points out, in these tournament, it's important to start accumulating chips right from the beginning.

This is precisely what I perceive as the flaw in this book. It is constantly giving you the proper advice of how to play when the "M"s, either yours or your opponents, are much smaller.

Now it just turns out that thinking like this will still be much better than the typical player who plays these small buy-in tournaments simply because, as I have stated many times in this thread, those situations where everyone has a deep stack relative to the cost per round won't occur that often. But when it does occur the advice is not optimal, and by thinking in terms of "M" you should always be able to make the optimal plays assuming you understand what they are.

best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]


Are you assuming that the players in the blinds play properly? If so, I think this is an improper assumption, especially concerning online players.

[Cactus Jack]

[ QUOTE ]
[quote Mr. Snyder gives an excellent example of how his 30 BBs (M20) went to 12 in just a few hands. This was definitely based upon the speed of the tournament, rather than the quality of decisions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeh, but if he got crap hands in that short of time, what's he supposed to do? Bad hands are bad hands and you can still play with an M of 12.

Now if you and Snyder are saying that you should have looked to not even get down to an M of 20...sometimes it just can't be helped. Besides, maybe the reason the M was 20 in the first place was because Snyder had tried to get more chips with a debatable hand when he was at an M of 25...or got beaten with a good hand - either could happen to Harrington or Snyder...perhaps slightly less so with Harrington since - while he impores you to try and stay there, might not be quite as desperate to stay well into the Green zone as Snyder.

I think Mason has explained everything, defended his position well and really has nothing much to add - particularly given that Radar has had a tendency to misrepresent some of his statements/twist them (perhaps) to keep the argument going and...hey, maybe generate buzz for the book.

---Leavenfish

[/ QUOTE ]

As you haven't read the book, there is no point in replying to your disagreement. And there has been far too much of the kind of sniping you indulge in with the last paragraph for any response to be anything but further inflaming. All I can say is shame on you, and everyone else including the two main opponents, who has indulged this tendency to bolster your position with unfair tactics.

The great value of 2+2 forums is always diminished by the inability of the participants to refrain from making personal attacks. Please do NOT respond to this, as there is nothing anyone can say which would disprove it.



This thread has been hugely beneficial to me for understanding the concepts presented on both sides. I'm now firmly in agreement that tournament speed has everything to do with the way a good player must play.

When I began playing tournaments, I was far too tight and rarely did well, not going far. As I've learned to play better, my results did not show the improvement commensurate. The reason for this, among many, is because I didn't understand how I had to play, given the rapid increase of the blinds and the small quantity of hands in which I had to choose from to play. Mr. Snyder has given many more weapons to add to the ones I've learned from reading Harrington's superb books.

I would NOT recommend PTF to a person who has never played a MTT or hasn't a lot of experience. The strategies will guarantee the freshman or sophomore player will lose a lot of money. A LOT. And be frustrated perhaps to the point of giving up. Very few will take his advice to play blind with position in order to learn how. (I sure as hell wouldn't!) But, given my level of experience, I can incorporate his strategy into my play in order to play position far better. (I have.) This is only one instance where the experienced player will benefit while the inexperienced will suffer.

But for people in their third, fourth year and beyond, this is graduate level stuff that can't help but improve their results. I highly recommend that NO ONE buy this book, esp if they are playing in the same tournament I'm in, or planning a trip to Vegas in the next 25 years to play in the local tournaments. It would cost me too much. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

As something to study after mastering the information in all 3 volumes of Harrington, I would say I can't imagine anything more that needs to be written on playing tournament poker. PTF puts the cherry on top.

CJ

[Leavenfish]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I think Mason has explained everything, defended his position well and really has nothing much to add - particularly given that Radar has had a tendency to misrepresent some of his statements/twist them (perhaps) to keep the argument going and...hey, maybe generate buzz for the book.

---Leavenfish

[/ QUOTE ]

As you haven't read the book, there is no point in replying to your disagreement. And there has been far too much of the kind of sniping you indulge in with the last paragraph for any response to be anything but further inflaming. All I can say is shame on you, and everyone else including the two main opponents, who has indulged this tendency to bolster your position with unfair tactics.

The great value of 2+2 forums is always diminished by the inability of the participants to refrain from making personal attacks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Give it a rest from your high horse, CJ - what I said was not a personal attack. Even Radar says "We have a blizzard of posts going on here, and it is difficult to properly track and respond to every argument" So, she may well have been unconsiously missing several of the things that Mason has been saying in her rush to post these, rather lengthy posts.

The ONLY thing that is obvious is that the thread keeps going around in circles. No wonder Mason seeks to end it - there is basically nothing left to say that has not already been said on the subject of 'tournament speed'! All we can do now is draw conclusions and I really don't see Snyder saying anything different from Harrington, he's just dressing it up differently - but to the same effect in the end when it comes to trying to such things as staying in the Green zone as long as possible. Just look at all the relevant quotes Mason has given from HOH. Snyder is just a abit more zealous in trying to do so though, again, HOH agrees that a more risky strategy is viable. When all is said and done, the risks Snyder would advocate may well balance out with the more conservative approach of Harrington...who can really say as each tourney gives you different hands, different players and circumstances. So a decision to gamble a bit 30 min into a tourney vs a bit more patience...who can say for sure what the ramifications will be? No one.

---Leavenfish

[BigAlK]

[ QUOTE ]
This thread has been hugely beneficial to me for understanding the concepts presented on both sides. I'm now firmly in agreement that tournament speed has everything to do with the way a good player must play.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
PTF puts the cherry on top.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well put Cactus Jack. Like you I'm convinced that tournament speed is something that needs to be taken into account. I now have a way to quantify speed and suggestions as to how adapt to faster speeds. I think Mason has made a good case that the Harrington series and the adjustments for low Ms will often lead to the same approach. However no one has convinced me that anticipating rapidly decreasing M and adjusting your play according isn't appropriate. Personally I don't see this as contrary to Harrington - just an adjustment like the one for shorthanded tables, but a bit earlier than 1 or 2 hands at the end of a level.

Regardless I appreciate the participation from Mason, Arnold, and Radar in articulating and defending their positions. We've all got to decide for ourselves whether the PTF has ideas that can be integrated into our personal playing styles or not and, if so, how. The discussion has certainly given us lots of viewpoints to help with that decision.

The discussion also drug me from the status of avid lurker (over a year) to actually getting a sign-on and taking a more active participation in the forums. From a personal standpoint that's got to be good too.

Al

[Mason Malmuth]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you assuming that the players in the blinds play properly? If so, I think this is an improper assumption, especially concerning online players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi jack:

That's fine. Your point just confirms my point. That is you are actually stating that you have to make a poker decision as opposed to one based on tournament speed.

Best wishes,
mason

[jackaaron]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Are you assuming that the players in the blinds play properly? If so, I think this is an improper assumption, especially concerning online players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi jack:

That's fine. Your point just confirms my point. That is you are actually stating that you have to make a poker decision as opposed to one based on tournament speed.

Best wishes,
mason

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, agreed. Good point. Ultimately the poker decisions are of the utmost importance it seems.

[smbruin22]

i'll wade in with a few comments here (keep the thread going [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img])

saw this book and it looks really interesting, as does the website.. can't vouch for its "correctness" though. but the tournament guide on the website should be of interest to most posters here.

haven't read the entire thread, but i think it's ludicrious to aggressively try to stay at an M > 20 for any kind of shorter tournament... you're getting below 20 pretty easily and quickly.... ties into my next point..

have seen almost no talk about Q... your stack relative to average opponent.... sometimes you can be the chip leader with an M of 10-12, sometimes even as low as 7-8... talk of speed and M, but little talk of Q (didn't read whole thread).

i think HOH 1 and 2 are great (don't have 3).... but i think people make them out to be advice for most tournaments. i think dan's first two books assume long tournaments and fairly good opponents on average. i know he labels examples as from SNG, but i really question how many he had played when he wrote those books. and the books aren't intended for SNG's anyway (but whenever there's SNG thread, out come the harrington testimonials).

anyhow, to a large degree the snyder book looks like it MIGHT become what many have asked for - a guide to SNG's.... i think a great offshoot will be people questioning harrington's advice and its applicability to faster tournaments (i know that's not intended audience, but people have been interpreting that way)

FWIW, i saw one copy at world's largest bookstore in toronto. tried to purchase thru canadian amazon, but they had 1-3 month wait. went back to store, book sold.

BTW, i have no interest in this whatsoever. had no idea who arnold snyder was until a week ago.